Variables
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: Katie has always prided herself on her control, but now nothing makes  sense to her anymore. Still, she's trying to figure out what Drew wants, how to give it to him & what any of it even means. But the more she tries, the more confused she feels. ONESHO.


**Author's Note: So…third time is the charm, I guess?**

**I'm so sorry I keep doing the big "delete/repost/delete/repost" bullshit on you guys. I know it pisses everyone off and I need to stop doing it. I should really come up with some type of punishment for myself whenever I do it (especially after deleting and reposting twice already, sheesh). So I'm so sorry if this keeps irritating the hell out of people. I PROMISE, this time, it is here to stay, no matter how sucky it might actually be and how dissatisfied I become with it the day after posting (again).**

**So, that being said…**

**I like Katie. I like her on her own, and how she was an emotional grounding for Drew and helped him find some semblance of peace. And despite being a long-time Drianca shipper, I do not detest Krew. I just think they're just not compatible for each other in the long run. So I decided to explore that. Uhh, with porn. Ish. **

**Some references in this fic are events that occurred in my oneshot "Glass House". Hopefully you can read that one as well, if you haven't done so already, because I'm actually quite proud of it, if I do say so myself (meaning I have never had the urge to delete it, which is saying a lot).**

**I don't own Degrassi. **

**I.**

In the dim light of Fiona's apartment, Katie could see the girls talking to Drew before she saw Drew himself. He stood at the bar while two Grade 11 girls with matching dark hair and skirts that crawled up their crotches. He didn't look like he was hugely invested in the conversation, but Katie could tell he was flirting with them. Given that Drew flirted with pretty much everyone, it shouldn't have bothered her as much as it did, because at the end of the night, she knew who he was with.

But still.

She couldn't NOT feel it. The slithering envy at Drew's elsewhere attention, the exact insecurity that Bianca had called her out on that made her feel so small, and the guilt that she should be so petty and paranoid. But it felt just as bad as good, that quiet anger burning inside her.

The girls were pretty. Teen television drama series pretty – perfectly styled hair and nails, perfect clothes, high heels, extra small everythings.

Pretty girls made Katie think of Bianca's words again. And Bianca's words made her think of Bianca. Katie scanned the room, but couldn't find the girl anywhere. Maybe she had decided not to show up. Or maybe Fiona had done Katie the mercy of not inviting her in the first place.

Drew continued talking to the two Grade 11 girls, but then he saw her in the doorway, and his smile beckoned her over to him. The girls turned at the same time to look at her, sizing up this girl who had the affections of the star quarterback. Katie could tell just by the way their eyes took her in that she didn't measure up to their standards. She was grateful that she'd chosen to wear pants tonight, feeling safer covered up.

Drew's smile tilted downward when she hesitated, so Katie pulled herself together and marched over beside him, trying her best to not make her steps too loud or her stride too long and awkward. She could smell the perfumes on the two girls as she stepped closer, reminding her of Marisol and shopping expeditions into stores she would never buy things from. The girls gave her one more look as she stepped to Drew's side. His arm automatically slid around her waist, claiming her just as much as the soft kiss he gave her behind her ear that branded her as _belonging._ It made the burn in her stomach cool. She didn't need to do anything to prove to those girls, or anyone else, that she was the one who had him.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, lacing her fingers with his other hand. She loved how his hands were always warm and sure. He never had to second-guess himself. Every movement defined his action, his purpose.

"It's okay," he said. "I came early, anyway."

The two girls gave Katie one last once-over with their eyes, thoroughly unimpressed.

"Bye, Drew," one of them said, giggling.

Katie hated girls that giggled. She could still smell the force of their perfume as they turned and walked away, smelling like nectar or honey. Something sweet and meant to draw you in.

Drew turned his attention back to her. She could smell the cologne he wore and let it wash over her. It smelled like fresh water and toothpaste, refreshing but icy on the surface. It put her at ease.

"Your parents okay for tonight?" he asked.

She nodded. "I told them it was a girl's night. Me, Mare, Fiona, Imogen. Maya's covering."

He grinned. "Knew I liked your little sis."

Katie didn't like lying to her parents; she liked it even less when she implicated her sister in the lie. But she knew her parents would never let her out of the house if they knew she'd be at a party where there would be alcohol, even if she didn't have any intention of getting wasted. Drew didn't, either – he was driving her home, after all – but that wasn't the type of information that would appease her parents, so it was just easier to tell them she was going to Fiona's and conveniently leave out the rest.

Besides, even though her parents liked her boyfriend, they were wary to let her go many places with him. So after the first few dates, bending the truth and enlisting Maya and Marisol's help was becoming more the status quo, even if she didn't like it.

"Hey," she heard him say. "Anybody home?"

She blinked, realizing she'd spaced out. Drew leaned in close, stopping just short of kissing her. He looked at her face like she was searching for something in it. Katie wondered what he was looking for, or what he thought he could see.

That was one of the strange things with him. He could look at her and see something she hoped to keep buried, but at the same time miss things that were right on the surface no matter how hard she tried to keep them down.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine."

"Sure?"

Katie paused. She never knew what to say when he asked the same question twice. Did he know she had a different answer, or did he expect one?

Drew took a step closer to her. He cupped her jaw with his hand, bending her face towards his for a kiss. Her skin zinged where his fingertips brushed her, and it made her entire body feel like twitching.

She remembered the first time she'd held him, the night she brought him home from the cage match. They'd been lying on his bed together, fully clothed but soaking wet, and she'd wrapped her arms around him and hummed him to sleep. Her skin hadn't tingled back then. Instead of feeling small currents wherever he touched her, she had felt a sagging relief flood through her as the tension that had turned Drew into a human tornado in that cage slowly seeping out of him through her fingertips.

She let the memory of that cold night be drowned out by this present kiss. It was just another reminder to Katie that their relationship had grown out of "need", not "want".

She squeezed the hand he had closed around hers. "Fine," she repeated. "I'm just…gonna go get a drink."

"I'll get it for you," Drew volunteered. "What do you want?"

Katie glanced above her. The kitchen ceiling was covered with a large piece of artwork made up of several mirrors, so when she looked up, she saw a dozen of her own broken reflections cutting across the sparkling glass. It reminded her a little of how alcohol made her feel.

"I'm not sure," she muttered.

"What?" Drew asked, straining to hear.

Katie peered up at her warped reflections again. She could see Drew in the corner of each piece of mirror, although he looked more like a small blot of dark blue as the mirrors only caught the cuff of his jacket sleeve.

"I'll take whatever's red," she said finally. "If they have the stuff I had last time."

She didn't know exactly what she had had last time, but she knew she liked red wine better than white, and that she liked wine way more than she liked beer. Red wine was still bitter and made her nose itch, but at least it had a sweetly sour tang that made her feel like she could stomach it. Though she had to sip it slowly; if she took in too much at once, it made her gag. It tasted like overripe fruit; like something sweet, rotted inside.

**II.**

The night Katie had lost her virginity to Drew, she'd told her parents she was sleeping over at Marisol's – a lie Marisol all too gleefully endorsed. Despite her long-standing hatred of Drew and Drew's equal disdain for her, she was willing to put all of that aside to celebrate Katie finally losing her virginity.

"Shopping," was the first thing Marisol said after Katie had explained the plan – and after she'd nearly deafened Katie by shrieking into the phone. "You and me. This weekend. It is SO gonna happen."

The irony of it almost made Katie laugh. Shopping for clothes on a night when she wouldn't be wearing any.

She tolerated going shopping with Marisol on the best of occasions, and if they were going to spend hours looking through lingerie, Katie knew it was going to be a long, frustrating day. She wondered if she should have gotten Fiona to cover for her instead, or even Imogen. But Marisol would never have forgiven her if Katie had kept it a secret.

And when she took stock of her friends, there was really no other option. Fiona, aside from not being into guys, didn't have much luck with relationships, and Imogen wasn't much better off in that department, even after dating Eli for almost three months. Marisol may have been far too chipper and giggly than Katie liked about the subject, but at least she knew what guys wanted and what to look for, and she was willing to put aside her own feelings about Drew to be excited for Katie.

They'd shopped for the better part of the weekend, making Katie feel even more self-conscious than normal and giving her a whole new experience of hating her body than she ever thought possible. But the harder she protested against it, the more Marisol dragged her into shops, in search of that "perfect" piece.

Finally, Marisol found a plum-colored negligee that wasn't hideous on Katie.

"You look so sexy!" Marisol squealed when Katie creaked the door to her dressing room. Katie had dressed with her back to the mirror and kept her shoes on, but even without looking at her reflection, she still felt like she was too naked. Too naked to BE naked.

Marisol twirled her finger in the air, demanding Katie spin for her. Katie rolled her eyes but followed orders, just willing to get out of this thing as quickly as she could.

"You look good enough to eat," Marisol declared. Then her eyes lit up, and she giggled. "Hey, Drew can do that, now!"

"I'm taking this off," Katie announced, hugging her arms around her shoulders. Her incredibly freckled shoulders. Why did she have to have so many freckles? She looked like a giant connect-the-dots.

She closed the door to the dressing room behind her, and ducked her head when she accidentally caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She hated how pale and doughy her thighs looked; how see-through the fabric was; how she couldn't hide the soft white moon of her not-flat stomach or how freakishly broad her shoulders were.

She dressed quickly, and was thinking about not getting the slip at all, but Marisol snatched it out of her hands and paid for it herself, falling deaf to Katie's protests.

"Drew isn't going to know what hit him," Marisol whispered to her. She grinned wickedly. "You are gonna rock his world."

**III.**

Drew drummed his fingers against the countertop, tossing her a grin.

"Having fun?" he asked.

Katie shrugged. "I'm not _not _having fun," she said.

He grinned. "Is that code for 'I'm having a miserable time and wish my boyfriend would take me somewhere else'?"

Katie took a sip of wine. She didn't really like it, but she did like how it made her laugh more, and she felt less out of place in Fiona's spacious condo when she had a drink in her hand. Even when she was just hanging out here for study sessions or Girls Night sleepovers, Katie always felt like she didn't belong here, in this large, dim palace made of stone and oak, surrounded by things that shouldn't be beautiful anywhere else but in this room, as if Fiona's elegant touch was enough to _make _them so.

She stared at the chandelier hanging down from the center of the ceiling over the dining table. Some of the kids who had already had too much to drink were staring at it, mesmerized by the glowing fake candlelight, while others were hanging their Solo cups from the iron pegs.

Drew said something she couldn't quite here, but from the tone, she thought it sounded as if he had been saying it a few times before she caught on. "What?"

"I said, do you want to go somewhere else?"

"Are you having fun?"

Drew shrugged one shoulder. "Not really. This party's kinda lame."

"What else do you want to do?"

She felt stupid as soon as she'd said that, because she saw the amused way he narrowed his eyes at her, tightening his hand around hers.

"Depends," he drawled, "on how much you think we can do before your curfew. I think we made good timing last time."

Katie watched Fiona on the couch, talking with Eli, Adam, and Clare. All four of them seemed to be deeply involved in whatever it was they were talking about. She noticed Eli had his hand intertwined with Clare's the whole time, and that they left no room in between them for anyone or anything else.

"What about Adam?" she asked.

"He's sleeping over at Eli's tonight," Drew said. "So we don't have to worry about the noise." He closed his arm tighter around her waist, bringing her closer to him. Some of the wine in her glass slipped out, deep purple dots spreading on her corduroys. "And my parents are in Windsor with my grandma for the weekend."

"Which means…" Katie filled in, already knowing where this was going.

"We have the house to ourselves," he finished.

Katie stopped the shiver going through her and took another sip of the wine. It nearly slipped down the wrong pipe, but she managed to hold in her cough, eyes streaming and making a gasping noise instead.

Drew patted her backside. "You all right?"

She took a breath. "Wrong pipe," she wheezed. She set her glass down on the bar and tried to take a deep breath. "Maybe I should lay off on the wine."

"Ahh, you didn't have that much," Drew replied with a grin. "You're always so in control."

The way he said it, it sounded almost like a tease, a jab. Like something Marisol would say to her: "You're such a Capricorn. Always need to be in charge".

Katie had always been proud of her control. Even when her bulimia was at its worst, there had been a dark sense of pride she'd carried with it. Even in the spiraling chaos of the constant binging and purging, there had been a sense of Katie-esque control, a jumbled but maintained sense of order.

"Is that an insult or an observation?" she wheezed.

Drew laughed. "Wow, you know how to take a compliment."

Katie wheezed again as Drew's hand rubbed her backside, molding to the curve of her spine.

"And you know how to give one," she replied.

Drew's hand stilled on her waist, his palm flat against the small of her back like a brand.

"It's what I love about you," he said, crooking his lips into a teasing smile. "Everything you do, you think through all the way. That's why you do it perfectly. You're always making things simple."

Katie had spent her life avoiding drama. With Drew, he was the best of that, but could also be the worst of it, as well. He wasn't exactly dramatic; not in the way she'd accused Clare Edwards of being, or the way Marisol could be at times. He was just…very _there_. Very present. So fully…existing in everything he did, every time. Even when he was calm, it still felt like he was somehow controlling the air around him, like he was pushing against it and didn't want to be contained by it. It was the way he could be, she knew; the times that he went from being devoted to distracted, and could also switch from understanding to unaware, was all part of him, as confusing as it was familiar.

"Am I simple?" It seemed an insult, somehow, even though it wasn't. She wasn't sure she wanted to be simple, but wasn't sure she didn't want to be, either.

Drew shrugged. "I like simple," he replied. He smiled against her skin. "I like _you."_

**IV.**

Once Katie had officially crossed over into the realm of "non-virgins", it seemed like it was all Marisol wanted to talk about. She even seemed to have forgotten that it was _Drew_ Katie had slept with; someone who had nothing but open contempt for her and someone she had nearly ended their friendship over. Every conversation seemed to revolve around it, and if it wasn't, Marisol found a way to make it.

Marisol had lost her virginity in Grade 8, which wasn't surprising to Katie; her friend had been saying since she was twelve that she wanted to lose it before going to high school. Once, during her and Katie's freshman year, she'd told Katie that she could tell which girls were virgins and which ones were not just by looking at them, as if sex was a scar.

"I can't believe Miss Saint Clare handed in her V-card," Marisol whispered to her once as they walked past Eli and Clare in the hallway.

Katie whirled around, staring at their retreating backsides, then turned back to Marisol. "She did not," she argued.

Marisol rolled her eyes. "Oh trust me, she definitely did." Marisol rubbed her hands together gleefully. "One less virgin strolling through the Degrassi halls. Though why she would give it up to that weirdo is beyond me."

"I don't think so," Katie said. "Clare's a part of the Friendship Club. She wears a cross necklace. She even has a purity ring. I saw it. I don't think she would just give all that up."

Marisol laughed. "Well, trust me, girl, she definitely gave it up. It's written all over them both."

"I think you're wrong."

"And I think I'm right," Marisol gave her a smug grin. "Trust me. I know I am."

Katie couldn't help but watch the two of them, walking down the hallway with their hands laced in each other's.

"You really think so?" she said, watching them turn the corner.

Marisol snorted. "Of course. You know that whole rumor that you can tell just by looking? It's not a rumor. It's completely true."

Katie had brushed the thought off as ridiculous back then, but now that she'd done it, she wondered if people could tell just by looking at her. She hadn't told anyone except for Marisol, and she figured Fiona and Imogen knew even if she hadn't told them directly. But she wondered if the dozens of random students who managed to catch her eye during school somehow knew what she was now, or if any of Drew's friends could tell by the way they acted around each other that she'd given it up to him.

Paranoid, she kept trying to tell herself. That's all she was. Paranoid and insecure, just like Bianca had accused her of being.

Still.

She wondered if Bianca ever saw her in the cafeteria sitting with Drew, and just _knew_ they were sleeping together. Part of that fed into her paranoia, but another part of Katie kind of wanted Bianca to look at her and see the girl who was in Drew's bed.

But Katie tried _not_ to think about that as often as she could. She already had enough on her mind.

When she wasn't with Drew, she often worried about the variables in their relationship; like the kind of questions he would ask her that she couldn't answer, and the questions she needed to ask him but didn't want to know the answers to. Or how she could possibly compare to anyone else he'd ever had, or if he'd ever had a virgin at all. Surely he must have, at some point in time; everyone was a virgin once.

The first time they fooled around, her hands went straight to his cock through his school pants. While the action hadn't exactly been refused or questioned, Drew still laughed when he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

_Easy, _he'd said. _Take it easy. It'll feel awesome. _

Katie didn't know what it meant to take it easy. She didn't know what felt good, what she was supposed to do, or how to even begin doing it right when she figured the first two out. Katie felt sometimes like she'd never know enough to arm herself with. She hadn't known that girls had trouble climaxing during actual sex; Katie had had her first orgasm fully clothed and sitting upright, before Drew even got inside her.

Marisol explained all of this to Katie afterward, with an air of letting Katie know this was something she should have known beforehand.

"How generous," she'd said drily. "Probably knew he wouldn't last long enough to get you there." Marisol smirked at the comment. "So, how long _did_ he last?"

Katie had shrugged. "I don't know, a few minutes? It's not like I have a frame of reference."

"Well, did you at least see how big he was?"

She bristled. "How should I know?"

"Was he at least proportional?" Marisol had asked. "I know he's kind of short for a guy, but he has pretty big hands…"

"Oh, stop it," Katie had snapped, blushing. The questions irritated her as much as embarrassed her, and she was also annoyed that she was still blushing about stuff like this. She had already taken that leap. So why was it still so difficult to talk about it? It wasn't any worse than actually _doing_ it.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Marisol had insisted, sounding more defensive than reassuring. "Look, we're already both doing it. So why can't we just talk about it?"

"Because I don't want to talk about my boyfriend's penis with you!"

The phrasing somehow made her feel even more annoyed, not to mention uncomfortable, and she felt another surge of embarrassed heat crawl up her skin as she turned away from Marisol.

Marisol had sighed. "Okay, look, I'm sorry. I just thought I could talk about this with my best friend. I just don't get why you're so embarrassed to talk about it. It's not like you're doing anything wrong."

"I know that," Katie muttered, wondering, _how do you know that? I don't even know that._

**V.**

It had been drizzling when Katie's dad had dropped her off at the condo, but now it was raining hard, the air heavy and smelling like sick, sweet decay when she climbed inside the passenger seat of Drew's car.

The radio blared to life when he turned the ignition, startling her. Drew laughed when she jumped, then turned down the stereo, the frantic drumbeats and the screeching guitars turning into a whisper from a scream.

She stared out the windshield as he drove through town. They drove through huge puddles gathering on the side of the road, grinding the tires and splattering their windshield with blinding white rain. It made Katie feel like she was being sucked into a whirlpool.

"Did you think about it a lot?" Katie asked suddenly.

Drew peered over at her. "About what?"

She stared at her hands in her lap. "About having sex."

Drew looked at her, surprised. "Uhh…in what way?"

Katie felt her face heating up. "About any of it. Us. How it would work. I mean," she hurried, "not how it works mechanically or anything – I pretty much knew that – but about how we would feel." Katie's hands twitched in her lap as she tried to meet his eyes. She knew she was babbling. "How it could satisfy us. Not just in the physical sense, but emotionally."

When Drew didn't answer, Katie took a breath and stared back out the windshield, glad for the darkness in the car because she knew her face was beat red. She focused on the windshield wipers, vacillating back and forth, back and forth, wiping one storm away before another blinded the road ahead.

"I do," Drew said after a beat. "Think about it."

She turned to him. "And?"

Drew bit his lip. For some reason, the gesture made him look much younger; shy, even.

"It kind of freaks me out a little," he confessed. "How much I like it. Not just the physical stuff," he added quickly. "I mean, that stuff…it's kind of the same with everyone, if you get down to it. But everything else…"

He paused, then reached over and touched her shoulder briefly before turning his eyes to the road.

"It's different," he told her. "Not like any other girl. _You're_ different."

Katie didn't answer. She didn't really know what he meant by that.

Marisol told her once that while the first time wasn't perfect, it was more about the emotions than anything else. Katie had brushed her off as being sentimental at the time, but now she knew what she meant. The first time she'd had sex, Katie hadn't really done anything – she let Drew undress her, then lay naked underneath him while he touched her, and didn't move unless he told her to do so. She wasn't sure what sex was supposed to actually feel like, but all she'd really felt was embarrassment, mingled with some pain and a little bit of fear she couldn't explain or identify.

If there was anything Katie hated more than drama, it was second-guessing herself. She had been completely sure of her decision to have sex with Drew – she had to have been at the time, or else she never would have done it in the first place.

Katie knew she would never be the kind of girl to degrade herself, to be one of those girls who gave it up to guys because they thought sex would keep boyfriends around. Katie had known even as a virgin sex wouldn't solve any problems, just create them.

Which was why, in typical Katie fashion, she'd sat down and calmly written down every rational reason why she wasn't ready to have sex yet – countered by every reason why she thought she was. She thought she'd made herself a good argument. But before she could really examine her case, there was one thought listed in the "YES" column that kept jumping out at her:

_What if I'm never really "ready"?_

It wasn't like there was going to be some switch that went off in her mind, an alarm that went off to tell her that it was okay to make the choice. How would she know? She'd never been in a serious relationship before. Everyone was nervous about their first time; perhaps there was no true answer as to whether or not someone could actually "be" ready.

Besides, when she'd told Drew before prom that she didn't want to have sex yet, she had felt completely different. Back then, she knew deep down she wasn't ready; when she'd made that list, all those lines and limits she had always looked to for control had disappeared, leaving her floundering.

Drew suddenly broke the tension by letting out a small laugh.

"Wow," he said. "I sound like an idiot."

"No," she said. "It sounds…informative."

"Informative?" he joked. "What, like a dictionary?"

She thought he might have meant an encyclopedia, but Katie didn't say so.

"It's…" she said, scrounging for the right word, "honest."

She looked at him, wishing they were at a red light so she could lean over and kiss him, or that they were already at his place and getting undressed. That way, she wouldn't really need to talk anymore. One less thing to worry about.

"Well," Drew said, "at the risk of sounding like a crappy movie, I just wanted you to know that."

She nodded, like she actually knew what he meant.

The windshield continued to wipe away the onslaught only to be savaged again by the rain. Whenever they brushed away the waves of the storm and Katie could make out the city through the turbulence outside the windshield, all she saw were the bounce and bobble of lights. When the rain came down, they glowed like fallen stars, ripped out of the night sky.

**VI.**

"So," Marisol had asked in study hall, a few weeks after the first time. "Have you guys done anything else?"

Katie stared down at the table, feeling her face heat up. "Mare, not here."

Marisol's eyes lit up. "Have you? Ohmygod, did you guys try doggy-style yet?"

Katie glared at her. "_Not here!"_ she demanded.

Marisol dropped her voice, but she grabbed her notebook and wrote, _did you?_ in the corner of the page.

Katie threw her another dirty look, but wrote, _NO _in bold letters, then added, _we haven't even had sex since the first time. We're taking it slow. _

Okay, that had been a lie, but Katie didn't want to hear any more from Marisol. And anyway, it wasn't as if she had much to report on the subject. They'd only had sex a few times, and missionary was so far the only thing they'd ever tried. Katie didn't think it was comfortable or uncomfortable, it just _was. _She didn't really have an opinion on it, just like she didn't really have an opinion on whether or not she liked the sex itself. She just figured that as long as she was still getting the hang of this thing, she might as well stay where she was.

Though sometimes, Katie felt like being underneath him was like being under a scalpel – as if he were going to study her. She hated that feeling and tried to push it away whenever it crossed her mind. She didn't want to feel like she was being studied, because then she thought about how disappointed Drew could be if he took the time to study what was there.

But for now, Drew seemed totally all right with being the one on top, being the one to guide her through. He didn't seem to really care about the logistics of the sex, just that they were having it.

Marisol looked disappointed, but wrote _did you guys do anything else? Oral? _

Katie hoped her face didn't look as red as she felt it was. _NO_, she repeated.

_Neither of you?_

_**NO.**_

Katie had known the basic mechanics of a blow job since Grade 7 despite never having given one. But she hadn't realized that guys could actually reciprocate until she was fifteen and heard Marisol talking to one of her friends on cheer squad about her boyfriend going down on her.

"Oh, God," Marisol giggled when Katie gave her a look, "she doesn't know what it means to go down."

Katie still wasn't entirely sure how "going down" on a girl went, but Drew didn't offer and she didn't ask, knowing it would probably be one more way she'd humiliate herself.

Besides, Katie was glad Drew never offered to go down on her, and even more grateful that he never asked her do to the same for him, because in all honesty, the thought of oral sex repulsed her. She just could not for the life of her figure out why any girl would want to put her mouth on a guy's penis. Considering where it had been, it just seemed entirely too gross to consider. And why any guy would want to put his mouth on a girl _down there_ seemed equally weird to her.

She had tried bringing this up with Marisol once, but Marisol just insisted that with the right guy, it wouldn't feel gross.

"Trust me," she'd told Katie. "When the timing is right, it all works out in the end."

Maybe that's what _she _thought, but Katie still couldn't bring herself to broach the topic with Drew, and was glad he hadn't (yet, anyway).

But if it still didn't feel right to her, then what did that mean? Did it mean Drew was the wrong guy? Or did it just mean that she was the wrong girl?

**VII.**

By the time they pulled into the driveway of Drew's house, Katie wondered if she had been right about having too much to drink. She felt cold inside, but her face was too hot, her head feeling unable to focus on anything. She nearly tripped climbing out of the passenger seat. She stood in the driveway for a moment, trying to regain her balance, and stared at the storm as if she had never seen anything like the dark shimmer of raindrops falling in front of her face.

"Shit," Drew called as he locked the door. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her through the door. "Coming down hard."

It had been raining like this the night of the cage match. It was an odd switch of roles – instead of her leading him into safety, he was leading her. Into…something. At least out of the rain.

As Drew pulled her through the silent foyer and his cold, silver kitchen, Katie felt something vibrating in her skull all the way down to the tops of her fingers and the bottom of her spine. She wondered again if it was because of the wine, but before she could work it through her fuzzy brain, Drew whirled her against his closed bedroom door, her back pressing into the handle.

"So," he murmured. His hands teased the bottom of the wet fabric of her shirt, which Katie just realized was clinging to her from being outside. It made her feel embarrassed, even though there wasn't much for him to see. She wasn't exactly well-endowed.

His lips traced her neck, making her pulse jump where he landed on her skin.

"So what?" she mumbled, trying to fight the haze clouding her head.

He laughed, pressing her against the door. The handle dug into her backside, her head softly hitting the wood.

"Nothing," he said. His hair was plastered to his face, and she could make out every one of his eyelashes, dripping with raindrops. "Just, aren't you glad we went with this plan instead?"

Katie told herself to nod, but before she could be sure she was, he kissed her neck again.

"Amazing," she heard him mutter. She wondered what he could mean by that. She felt his hands slide up the sides of her wet shirt, his warm palms mapping her damp, chilled skin. His hands met at the small of her back, wrapping around her waist.

He pressed himself back against her, and her arms went around his shoulders. She remembered their first kiss, the way he'd framed her face in his bruised, bandaged hands. Those hands had been shaking back then, his eyes so scared, and his face had turned pale when he'd pulled away from her, filled with remorse and something else she couldn't define until she saw him beat that kid to the pavement inside the cage.

Now, he was all calm certainty, his hands slipping across the curve of her back while he nuzzled her cheeks with his own, sealing his lips over hers.

Some voice in the back of her mind whispered that he wanted her to open her mouth, so she did. Drew responded to her kiss with even more force.

Drew had always kissed her with purpose, with meaning. Nothing was ever halfway with him. He was a great kisser; Katie knew that without having to kiss as many guys as Marisol had. But whenever she got a sense of that purpose, she tried to match it with her own, and felt like she was failing every time. It was as if the more she tried to meet it, the more she held herself back, even though she wanted to give it all she had; even if she didn't know what "it" was, exactly.

"I like this plan," Katie managed. She felt one of his hands slip down her back and up the inside of her leg, tracing the zipper of her pants.

She felt him grinning against her mouth. "Glad you think so," he said, pulling the zipper down.

Katie tried to stay quiet, even though she knew they were the only ones in the house. He tugged her corduroys down her waist, his fingers sliding under the fabric of her underwear. He pushed one inside her, putting enough pressure to make her hiss through her teeth and let out a high-pitched cry that sounded nothing like her voice. She had worried she wouldn't be wet when he wanted her to be, but she didn't have to worry about that now. By the look on his face, she must have felt pretty good inside to him.

"So fucking hot," he whispered. He slid another finger into her, and Katie sagged against the doorframe, starting to shake. She wasn't hot. Not like Bianca hot. Not like "I have fantasies about you" hot. She wasn't hot at all.

The hands that were around his neck carded through his hair, gripping onto the dark spikes and weaving them through her fingers. She wondered briefly how she wasn't hurting him, tugging on his scalp as hard as she was, but another piercing cry whined out of her throat before she could think about it. His fingers still worked inward, opening her up and igniting fiery shudders that crawled up the ladder of her spine. She tossed her head back, gasping and choking on the breath she couldn't let out, the heat she couldn't release yet; not until he gave her MORE.

Drew moved his fingers faster inside her, pumping in and out. It made her too dizzy to hold herself up, and she was glad the door was there, the handle something to prop her upright. She let out a whimper, which turned into a wounded-sounding moan that vibrated from her throat an octave higher than normal. It was loud enough that she would have been embarrassed if she could get a grip on herself enough to realize it.

The utter lack of control Katie had over her own body right now would have terrified her if she could make herself focus on it, but she couldn't, because the only thing that was holding her up was his hand on her back and the doorknob digging into her, and she felt like if he didn't keep holding onto her, she would turn into nothing. Or burn up and disintegrate. She couldn't breathe as another powerful surge swept through her, and she didn't care about anything now except how badly everything was spinning out of control and how helplessly she wanted him to make it stop.

She let out one more moan that sounded almost inhuman, then came with a gasp that cut off in the middle, like an animal shot mid-escape.

She fell back, shuddering against the door, trying to get her breath. As soon as she opened her eyes, she knew she must have looked ridiculous – her stomach was pulsing as she tried to breathe, her pants were halfway down her knees, her hair was a wild mess, and her lips were probably red and swollen from kissing.

Drew slid his fingers out of her, bending their foreheads together.

"Feels good?" he murmured.

Katie managed a nod, still unable to breathe normally.

Drew steadied her before opening the bedroom door, and it was a good thing he had, because she probably would have fallen right onto the floor without something holding her from behind. They took the few steps to the bed and fell backward on it. She slid off her shoes while Drew took off his jacket and tossed it aside.

"Unnecessary," he grinned.

He bent over between her legs, his hands underneath her shirt, sweeping across the naked skin. She tried not to let him see how much she hated that. It wasn't that she was disliked him touching her there; it was just that she was so repulsed by that part of her body. Her stomach was white and flabby and fat and disgusting. She hated that his hands could feel every bit of gross flab that still hung on no matter how hard she worked to make it flat.

His hands climbed up her chest before she could really think about it, though. Drew rolled his fingers over the line of buttons going down her blouse, a shorthand. She lay back on the comforter and stretched her neck out, the response he was looking for, and he unbuttoned her soaking shirt with quick grace. She shrugged out of it and he tossed it on his carpet. Then his head dipped to her stomach, lips pressed against the skin under her belly button, making her entire spine shiver and her heart feel like it was sinking into her bones.

Katie was glad the lights were off. If he could really see her, that meant she had to worry about not only her facial expressions, but Drew's when he saw them. She felt relieved at not having to feel quite so self-conscious, but also hated that she had to put everything in black and white in order to gain something like confidence.

Drew kissed up her stomach, leaving a searing trail of damp prints in his path. She was blushing so hard she wondered how they weren't letting off traces of steam. Then he kissed right between her breasts, reaching his hands underneath her and unhooking her bra.

Before he could pull it off, with the hooks undone and the straps falling down her freckled shoulders, he paused and stared down at her. She couldn't make his face out too clearly in the darkness, but she could see by the shadows flickering across the bedroom wall that his expression was a mixture of hunger and admiration, neither of which felt particularly good to Katie.

Drew sat up and peeled his own shirt off, bending back over her body so their stomachs touched. He felt so warm, covering her own chilled skin, so smooth against her. He kissed between her breasts one more time before peeling off the wet fabric and tossing it next to the bed.

Drew had no shyness about his body like she did. He had no hesitation or thought as to what he would do, when he would do it, or how to do it. He was experienced, but he also had instinct – he just did without thinking, guided solely by what he felt.

Katie couldn't do that. She would get trapped in her headspace before she let it happen. Her control was too highly prized and hard-won to surrender it to every little thing she felt, or whatever she needed to do to relieve the intensity rushing through her whenever Drew did this to her.

_Did this to her._ It made her sound like a victim.

_Makes love,_ Katie corrected herself. _When he makes love to me._

Drew moved back to her pants, which were hugging her thighs. He slid them down her knees and grunted at her feet, a signal he needed her help. She propellered her legs in the air, helping him peel the wet corduroy off, and then eased one hand slowly up her bare thigh.

Katie fisted the bed sheets in her sweaty hands as she stared up at the ceiling, counting to herself even though there was nothing to count. She just needed to concentrate on something. She couldn't keep a coherent thought, and it would scare her if she could actually focus on something more complicated than _5, 6, 7, 8, 9…_

She just needed to hold something in her mind, something aware that would keep her from doing something she would regret.

What did she have left to regret?

Before she could think of that, Drew's hand slid farther up her leg. She stiffened, making him pause.

"Okay?" he asked.

She hated that question. She had no idea what he meant by it. Instead, she rolled her hips underneath his to make a point, nodding and biting her lip to keep herself from saying something that made her sound as desperate as she actually felt. She tilted her head back towards the ceiling. _17, 18, 19, 20…_

His hand slid back up between her legs, and she took another handful of sheets.

She felt his fingers trace the seam of her damp underwear, and she felt embarrassed as soon as he did that. She knew he could see them now, and she knew she was wearing cotton panties, the utilitarian Oshkosh kind that came in packs of six at the pharmacy. She hoped to God they were some solid color, or at the very least a reasonable pattern. Anything but pink, or God forbid, florals.

Damn it, she should have put on the underwear Marisol had talked her into buying when they had gotten the lingerie. They were panties, but at least they had black lace along the leg holes and waist, so they looked sexy instead of impossibly stupid and young. But she hadn't known when she'd gotten dressed for Fiona's party that she would end up here at the end of the night

Drew didn't make a comment about them either way. He just slid them off her, and then she was completely naked underneath him.

Drew smiled, leaning down and kissing her. His fingers stroked her forehead, making her shiver.

"You," he whispered in between kisses, "are so. Fucking. Beautiful."

Katie tried to turn her head so he wouldn't see her biting the inside of her cheeks. He was wrong.

He kissed her neck, caressing her naked chest. "Sexy as hell," he said, and Katie squeezed her eyes shut. He said these things whenever they were in bed together; he told her she was sexy (she wasn't), she was perfect (far from it) and that he couldn't wait to touch her (even though it had been seconds since he last did).

He kissed her on the lips again. "Beautiful," he repeated, nuzzling her collarbone, and she wished for the millionth time he would stop saying that.

Drew reached one hand down to stroke the side of her face. His touch was kind, but she still twitched under his hand, feeling weirdly paranoid about someone touching her there.

The gentleness reminded her, as so many other things did, of the night she had pulled him out of the cage. The freezing spring darkness had made this same bedroom feel more like a cathedral, a place to lay down sorrows and muted comforts on the same pillowcase.

Sometimes, it felt to Katie as if the boy she saw in the cage was still in there, somewhere, in shadows and pieces. She felt it when he would push the air out of the room, suffocating everything else around her; when he turned away from her, and it felt like a tidal wave at his back; when he touched her with all the force of a controlled hurricane.

He sat up and she closed her eyes, hearing the clink of his belt buckle and the shuffle and thump of clothes. Then she felt him lean over her once more, whispering in her ear, "okay?"

That damn word.

"Just," she finally gasped, and she wasn't sure what she was saying anymore. She was out of ideas, out of reason, out of control. She just wanted this to happen, because it would make the both of them feel good, and she could finally relax. She took a deep breath, trying to slow her panting, and reached one hand up to touch his belt buckle.

"It's fine," she said. "It's okay."

She didn't even care what that might mean anymore.

She twisted underneath him, then tugged on the hem of his boxers. It didn't do anything to bring them down, but his face showed her that he definitely appreciated the gesture. He kicked out of them and tossed his pants into a pile on the ground.

"Condom," she whispered quickly.

Drew nodded, already reaching over to the bedside table. He rifled through the drawer until he pulled out a foil-wrapped condom, and she watched him roll it on.

She winced inwardly, knowing that she was on the pill and still making him do this. She was just being her usual self, covering all her bases; she was responsible enough and Drew experienced enough to use protection every time. But still, she wondered if it wouldn't be better for both of them if he could just get inside her and not have to wait – even if it was all of thirty seconds – just to spare them both the awkwardness of the ritual.

Well, maybe it was only awkward for her. Maybe it was more irritating for him that he had to use one even though she was on the pill; that he couldn't just be inside her without a barrier.

If it irritated him at all, he didn't look like it did. Drew grinned down at her, bending between her legs, and she raised her hips, both of them eager to get things moving along. He smiled out of one side of his mouth, tracing down the sides of her body with his hands. He placed them on her hips, fingers digging into the skin.

This had hurt the first few times they had done it, and it still hurt a little as she felt him push into her, but he eased in gently and laced his hands with her. She breathed out sharply against his cheek, trying not to tense up and just let him do the work. She couldn't quite help it, but Drew knew what to do anyway.

Katie didn't know why she couldn't stop herself from tensing up; why her body felt like it was fighting his, even though this was what she thought she wanted since Drew pushed her against his bedroom door.

She peered over Drew's shoulders and saw the muscles of his shoulders flexing and stretching as he kept up a steady rhythm. She watched the sweat roll down his spine, pooling in the small of his back, and the shadows curve across his skin. She didn't know where to focus; there were too much going on at once, too many things she was feeling, and everything was moving so fast. She couldn't tell whether she was feeling pain or pleasure, love or need or want or lust; couldn't figure out anything anymore.

He kept up his beat as he whispered into her neck. She didn't really know or care what he was saying, but she could hear the tone, a reverent croon that completely contradicted what he was actually doing to her.

_What he was doing to her._

There it was again; like she was some sort of victim.

"Fuck," she heard him say. She didn't have time to think about the definition, because he threw their intertwined hands over her head, pinning her down like a butterfly, like a specimen. Drew held himself above her body, pausing for a moment, and she thought he had finished. But then he dropped down on top of her, lying flat on her chest, and thrust again, making her gasp wildly as the friction between them intensified.

Katie closed her eyes, seeing colors explode behind them, and tried to focus on that. Somewhere off in the dark she heard Drew muttering something to her, but didn't hear it or care. She just kept her eyes shut and saw the colors like fireworks. She tried to keep her mind steady on those colors, but they kept slipping away from her as she felt herself spiraling downward and longed to feel nothing at all.

Drew shuddered and pushed into her once more, making her cry out without wanting or meaning to. She couldn't think anymore, could suddenly remember nothing else except this, and gasped her release into his ear as oblivion washed over her.

There it was – years of control and discipline, every rule she set for herself that she had never broken and every goal she'd ever pushed herself to reach, every limit she'd forced herself to in the name of ambition and success – obliterated in a rush of blinding heat and light.

As she tried to recover the bits of herself blasted across the dark room, some far off part of her that was still aware of Drew realized he came, and that he was taking a second or two of his own to catch his breath.

Katie opened her eyes slowly, having not realized she'd shut them again. She half-expected to find herself somewhere else entirely. But no, it was still the same place. They were still in his blue bedroom in his empty house, the door closed and the window shades drawn, the lights off and no one to see them, no one to know, nothing but the shadows. Everything about the room was exactly the same – the trophies on the dresser, the dirty socks in the corner, the cup of water sitting on the bedside table and the clock blinking 11:36 – and the grand nothing of it all was somehow cataclysmic itself in its disappointment.

Drew inched closer to her until he was resting on her shoulder blade. She smelled his sweat and felt his heat, even though she felt chilled inside. His hands found her hair, raking through the sweaty mess. Then they came to either side of her face, just like that first kiss, and held it there, forehead touching forehead as his thumbs stroked the skin under her eyes. She tried not to shudder at the movement, still feeling that strange paranoia when his hands were this close to her face.

He looked at her with a softness that felt so out of place, given that they were both naked and he was still inside her. She remembered how he'd looked the night of his rescue; his brokenness, how lost he had been. How he had looked, dripping with sweat and rainwater, like something newly hatched, fragile and too vulnerable.

Foreheads still pressed together, Drew kissed her lips softly, stroking her face.

"You saved me," he murmured. "You know that?"

Katie wanted to squirm away, wanted to breathe again, but she held still, even though his hands made her feel claustrophobic. She knew that was his thank you for pulling him out of the cage that night, but she was never sure he was right about her saving him. She wasn't even sure what she had "saved" him from, because she knew he still had nightmares and struggled with demons that he never fully explained to her. He tried to hide it from her instead, and they both pretended he didn't have anything to hide.

"You brought me back," he continued. He pressed a kiss to her temples. "You made me better."

Katie heard what he was saying, but when it said it like that, it sounded like a mixture between a prayer and a pornographic whisper. And neither of those felt right.

Drew kissed her once more, both on the lips and forehead, before finally pulling out of her. He tossed the condom into the trashcan next to his bed, then curled next to her, wrapping his arms around her body and pressing his face into her shoulder blade. Katie had to admit, it felt nice not to have to do anything, especially now that the hard part was over. But she wished she could find a way to extricate herself and put some clothes back on without offending him.

Instead, she let Drew tug the covers back over them, and she pulled closer to him, unwilling to surrender his heat. She tried to relax, tried to remember how to enjoy her boyfriend holding her in his arms.

"Don't worry," he whispered into her ear. "I won't let go of you, either."


End file.
